


Lean on me

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Consent, F/M, Guitars, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream, Kissing, Romance, Sam is always Mary's favorite, crappy health insurance, sexy scientific terminology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24009736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She hadn't felt anything pop or grind and there was no blood. Mary told herself that every excruciating step back to the health lodge and prayed Byron Hale hadn't returned for follow-up on the poison ivy on his butt.
Relationships: Eliza Foster/Jedediah "Jed" Foster, Emma Green & Mary Phinney, Jedediah "Jed" Foster/Mary Phinney
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11
Collections: Mercy Street Summer Camp AU





	Lean on me

“Um, Mary? You’re limping. What gives?” Jed asked. He was sitting at the massive oak desk they were supposed to share, supposed being the operative word given the number of squabbles they’d had over the drawers, which side the lamp should sit on, and whether it was okay to use it as a foot-rest. She was evidently winning that one, since he wasn’t tipped back in the desk chair with his hiking boots perched on the many-knicked edge. It wasn’t much of a victory but considering her day, she’d take it.

“It’s nothing. I had to go help Emma track down one of her campers, got a little tangled in some roots, had to use a little brute force,” Mary said, shrugging for emphasis. His gaze flickered, almost imperceptibly, to camp’s slogan emblazoned on her tee-shirt and just above what Anne blithely referred to as her rack. Almost. She moved awkwardly towards the closest seat. “No harm, no foul.”

“Excuse me, but you’re a terrible liar,” he said. “Let me take a look. It’s not like there’s anything else going on.”

“This isn’t going to be interesting,” she said. She shuffled over to the exam table they had. It was roughly fifty years old and upholstered in a material that was impervious to any injury. The button-down Jed wore over his own camp tee-shirt in lieu of a white coat was a faded plaid of roughly the same vintage.

“You need help getting up there?”

“No, I’m fine.” It took every ounce of willpower and what limberness she possessed (not a little—she usually did well in limbo contests) to climb onto the table with a modest degree of grace. 

“So, you wanna tell me what happened? For real?” he asked.

“I told you, it’s nothing. It’s my bad ankle,” she said, letting him unlace her sneaker. “Georgia Henderson wandered off the trail and I managed to get it caught in some roots or some animal burrow on the way back. It’s not an exciting story.”

“How can you have a bad ankle? You’re like sixteen, not sixty-five” he said. He’d taken off both sneakers, which was good practice in terms of having a comparison, but it was weird being barefoot and not being at the lake or some other place where bare feet were appropriate. Her feet were naked. She was suddenly intensely glad she’d let Emma give her a pedicure, a regular one, not alternating camp colors.

“Um—field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse. We’re not all trust fund babies. Dartmouth doesn’t pay for itself, I have an athletic scholarship. And, I’m twenty-one,” she said. She would have glared, but he was being extremely gentle and was also focused on her ankle, so it would have been a waste.

“Shit, Mary. This is nothing?” he exclaimed, his fingers touching her very lightly. She peered down. _Shit_. It didn’t look good, it was blown up like if Hindenburg’s had a junior model and it looked like the Urban Decay “Bruise” palette had been smeared all over it. He pressed a spot and she hissed, then bit her lip. “Can you wiggle your toes? Move anything?”

She took a deep breath and managed to shift her toes slightly.

“You need an x-ray. And maybe surgery. How the hell did you walk back on it?” he said.

“It’s just a bad sprain. I’m positive,” she said, as positively as she could. It hurt like a mother and whatever relief the tightly laced sneaker had given her was gone, poof! “Trust me, I know the drill. There’s no bone sticking through the skin, it’s not obviously broken.”

“I guess we can call the urgent care and see what their hours are tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t like it though. You wouldn’t let a camper wait until tomorrow. You know you wouldn’t.”

“But I’m not a camper. I’m a counselor and the staff insurance covers hardly anything. I can’t afford hundreds of dollars in bills because you’re worried,” Mary said. “I’ll take some ibuprofen, hobble back to my cabin and ice it. No problem.”

“I’ll give you 800 milligrams of the ibuprofen and wrap it but you’re not hobbling anywhere today,” he said firmly, walking over to the medicine cabinet. 

“How do you propose I get back to my cabin? We don’t have crutches and don’t be fooled by my angelic attitude towards you right now—I don’t have wings, I can’t fly there,” she said. 

“That’s easy. I’ll carry you,” he said.

“What? No, no way. I’m too heavy and it’s totally inappropriate and—” And totally romantic, her inner voice supplied, totally hot and it would be totally easy for one thing to lead to another…

“You’re not too heavy. And maybe I’m not as tall as Henry or Sam but I’m perfectly capable of lifting you,” he said. 

“Yeah, all those squash games have really got you in shape,” Mary scoffed, trying to buy some time.

“Mostly rock-climbing, bouldering, but yeah, my squash game’s not bad,” he agreed, giving her what should have been a purely friendly smile, except for the look in his eyes, concern mingled with undeniable attraction.

“Jed, I can’t—” she said.

“I’m not going to try to make you do anything you don’t want to do, Mary,” he said softly. “I just—I just want to help and you can’t risk it, if you haven’t broken the ankle already, bearing any weight on it, it’s too dangerous. I can try to get someone else. If you’re more comfortable with that, that’s okay, I won’t be offended. Sam maybe?” he said.

“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want that.”

Jed just looked at her for a long minute, giving her his thinking hard face, then smiled broadly.

“How about a piggyback ride? You okay with that?”

Mary had no trouble envisioning herself on his back, the position far more kid-friendly and good-friend-y than romantic and definitely easier than trying to hop or hobble what seemed like nine million miles to her cabin and bunk.

“Yeah, I can live with that.”

* * *

About fifteen minutes later, Jed paused in the doorway of the women counselors’ cabin and asked, “Which bunk’s yours?”

They’d had a fairly normal conversation on the walk over, conducted at a regular volume, for all that her breasts were pressed snug against his back and his hands were grasping the backs of her thighs firmly; something about the trees and the open air and her monster ankle swinging slightly with his stride had kept things in what Charlotte would definitely call the friend-zone but as soon as he crossed the threshold, something changed.

She could have gotten down, he could have let her down and let her use him as a crutch to hop over to her bed, but she didn’t and he didn’t. And when she spoke, her voice was lower and she ducked her head so her mouth was right by his ear, her cheek grazing his unruly dark curls.

“The one by the window, with the patchwork quilt on it.”

“Okay, almost there,” he said, his voice just as low. Why had this seemed like a good idea? Her ankle was throbbing and she felt hot, acutely aware of every part of her touching every part of him.

“I can get down now,” she muttered when he was right beside her bed. Her twin bed would be close quarters for more than one person but that argument held exactly no weight with her suddenly clamoring id. He stood very still and she managed to slip off his back, most of her weight balanced on her one good ankle but she was unsettled enough to stumble just a little and that was all it took—he turned around swiftly and caught her in his arms. There was no way it was anything other than an embrace.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Why? I’m not sorry,” he said, just above a whisper. He was tall enough to be looking down at her but not so tall it would be hard to reach up and bring him closer.

“For being clumsy,” she said. “For almost knocking you over.” He laughed.

“I would love for you to knock me over. Whatever you want, Mary, if I haven’t made that clear before which I should have,” he said. “In case I haven’t done a good enough job, I consent, I really, really consent. Across the board. And before you ask, Liza, my ex, she broke it off weeks ago, I just didn’t want it being the next big topic for the gossip mill. Aka your roommates.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to do a consent blank check,” Mary said. She probably should explore the ex-girlfriend thing some more but not now. Definitely Not Now. “Um, sometimes, you know, people say, a kiss’ll make it better,” she said.

“You want me to kiss your ankle?” he said.

“You could maybe work your way down,” she suggested. “Start at the top.”

How much longer they would have left the health lodge unattended while she discovered that he was quite talented, eager and incredibly, impressively thorough was unknowable—and irrelevant, because Emma walked in when Mary was mid-gasp, her tee-shirt untucked, her midriff bare, and Jed’s button-down was dangling by one sleeve, his hands and lips extremely busy, her busted ankle registering very, very dimly. 

“You’re supposed to put a sock on the door-knob, Mary,” Emma called out before she ran out to the sound of their startled laughter. Mary rested her forehead against the place where his shoulder met his neck.

“It’s a shame, because I happen to have a spare sock,” he said, pulling out the one he hadn’t put back on after carefully wrapping her ankle from one of his zillion cargo short pockets. “I’ll hang onto this for next time, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“But, I should go. There won’t be a next time if we both get fired for neglecting our post and as long as you prop that ankle up, you’re good for now, right?” he said. He was looking at her like he thought she was very, very good and she blushed a little.

“Yeah, I’m good. Though a strawberry glacier wouldn’t hurt,” she said.

“It’s a novel treatment for a sprained ankle,” he said. “There any evidence-based data? Peer reviewed literature?”

“That’s where you come in. And the glacier. An n of 1’s not a lot, but we have to start somewhere,” Mary said. 

“Spoken like a true researcher,” Jed replied. “I assume you’ll want to compare the interventions, so we’ll need to set aside some time for that.”

“My hypothesis is the best outcome will be both treatments,” Mary said. “Together. Ankles take forever to heal. We’ll need a lot of iterations.”

“Have mercy, woman,” Jed laughed.

“What?”

“I’m going to fail my senior lab project if you keep it up—I’ll be too turned on to think straight.”

“You started it,” Mary said.

“True. But it looks like I’ve met my match,” he said. Mary smirked, briefly, because evidently her smirk was extremely enticing and compelled him to kiss her again, leaving her a puddle of goo on top of her Aunt Agnes’s flying geese quilt and Jed flushed and panting. 

“Bring your guitar too,” Mary said softly. “I like when you play. A lot. I like it a lot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Bill Withers's song "Lean on Me."
> 
> I make no excuses for this. It simply is.


End file.
